Is there any justice in the world? Julia Roberts wins Best Actress for 2000 for Erin Brockovich; her best performance admittedly, but she beat Ellen Burstyn for Requiem for a Dream, while Gillian Anderson didn’t even get nominated. Nonetheless here’s another entry in the ever-increasing number of superlative performances that, quite frankly, are too good for the academy. The same could also be said of Terence Davies, whose film was similarly ignored by the public and many critics. It’s enough to make one doubt one’s own sanity.

Based on Edith Wharton’s celebrated novel, it is set between 1905 and 1907 in New York in the upper echelons of society, and finds Lily Bart, niece to a rich aunt, trying to get into society by marrying a rich husband. She loves Lawrence Selden who loves her in turn, but she won’t marry him because he works, as a lawyer, and is not independently wealthy. She turns down various suitors, and then comes to regret it when she is falsely accused of an affair with a married man and ostracised by society, first becoming a paid companion to a social climbing woman wanting into society herself, then failing as a milliner’s apprentice before finally committing suicide when at the point of starvation. (more…)

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Wonders in the Dark is a blog dedicated to the arts, especially film, theatre and music. An open forum is highly encouraged, as the site proctors are usually ready and able to engage with ongoing conversation.